I gave a talk at the Denman Island Garden Club on the third Wednesday in March.  The Garden Club meets every third Wednesday of the month at 2 pm from September to June and they are a really fun and sweet bunch of gardeners.  They usually meet at the United Church Hall in case you are hoping to join.

I explained that I am not a herbalist, just a gardener with a book of recipes from the great herbalist Rosemary Gladstar.  Despite being from California, Gladstar is quite a respectable person as she was trained by her Armenian grandmother who grew up in Armenia.  The bulk of Gladstar’s teaching is derived from her grandmother and other eminent herbalists whose roots go back to ancient times.  

The simple reason they were so good at herbal medicine is that they were poor.  It had to be pretty bad, a hopeless case almost, for them to go spending money on a Doctor.  These were women who routinely delivered babies and performed minor surgeries.  Women of that time could cure just about any animal, kid or husband.  One of my friends was lucky enough to be raised by her Croatian Granny and that woman doctored all the farm animals and all the kids with a great rate of success.  This was normal in rural life all over the world.  

I have found herbal remedies that I am able to cook up myself from local herbs, some of them weeds, usually do far better than what we can buy from the pharmacy.  I gave several instances where the products I made out of herbs were far more effective than the expensive, modern pharmaceuticals that had been used.  

An example of this occurred recently.  I have a friend who is in such pain with her back that she was only able to sleep two or three hours a night.  I gave her some Saint John’s wort ointment to rub on her back as Saint John’s wort is not just a great antidepressant, it is a wonderful herb for treating nerve pain.  

After a few days, I asked how she was doing and she said she loved the ointment and it was healing her intractable psoriasis.  I was a bit shocked and asked how it was working on her back pain.  She said the ointment turned her back pain from unmanageable to manageable but she was more excited about the improvement in the psoriasis.  She explained that she tries everything on the psoriasis to see if anything would help.  

Doctors have prescribed lots of different treatments for her psoriasis but none of them helped and the steroid cream caused her skin to thin without the least effect on the psoriasis.  I asked her if the Doctors blamed her for their treatments failing and she said of course they did.  They implied that she didn’t really want to get well.  Doctors hate to be wrong.  

I looked up Saint John’s wort in my copy of Rosemary Gladstar’s, “Medicinal Herbs, A Beginner’s Guide.  She describes Saint John’s wort as, “simply one of the best remedies for trauma to the skin.”  It is a good thing my intrepid friend thought to experiment with it.  

Another example came from one of my nieces who has terrible allergic reactions to mosquito bites.  She swells up like a puffer fish.  They used antihistamine cream and it did about as much good as holy water.  They were visiting here last summer and I gave her some magic ointment for her bug bites.  The swelling was vastly reduced.  The ointment was made from the rare and expensive herbs chickweed and plantain…  

I too have severe allergic reactions and came in from work with the skin of my forearm covered in angry red bubbles.  My husband told me to put some of the chickweed and plantain salve on it.  I washed and dried my arm and, as I am always experimenting, tried an antiseptic and astringent on the top half of the rash and the ointment on the lower half.  30 minutes later, the lower half of my arm was white and smooth again.  The top part of the arm was still covered in red blisters.  I have never seen an antihistamine cream that works as fast and as well as the simple ointment that I made.  

We finished the talk and an old friend came up to complain that I was too cynical about big pharma as he feels they are keeping him alive with his cancer.  A retired Doctor was standing next to us and the Doctor said, “She isn’t cynical.  Max is clear eyed.”  It must be very frustrating to be a Doctor who does not have access to helpful medicines.  

The Doctor then asked me to do a workshop where people can learn, hands on, how to make these simple but very effective preparations.  I will do a workshop later in the spring but just for fun.  I learned all I know from Gladstar’s book which teaches step by step how to grow, harvest, and prepare medicines from herbs.  Just buy the book!  You can order it at Abraxas Books, our local full-service book store.  

Green Wizardry, The Spring Equinox  by Maxine Rogers

This year, the Spring Equinox falls on 19 March but it is usually celebrated on the 21^st of March which is the day this paper comes out.  It is a day of perfect balance between night and day.  It is a time of transition from winter to the exuberance of spring.  

A few days ago, the bitter cherry trees, native to this part of the world, and always the first to bloom put on a glorious show of tiny, snow-white blossoms.   A fitting announcement that spring really is here.

The sun, suddenly not so shy, shines forth and the birds return from southern lands bearing the glories of summer under their wings.  The frogs are singing love songs and one of my neighbours has already begun talking about drought!  I see lambs here and there.  Beautiful spring flowers grace our gardens.  

I want to take a moment here to laud a great Druid man of these islands.  He has been a kind of Saint Francis to animals, wild and domesticated lo these many years.  Yes, I am talking about the great Peter Karsten.  

Peter is the man we all go to when we need help with wildlife.  The following is a very recent story but he has helped me with injured wild animals before this and done the same for many other people and creatures.  

My husband called me to come out and deal with what he thought was an injured raven asking for help.  The raven was hopping around our compost bins uttering an uncharacteristic squawk.    It was raining and I could see an open wound on the raven’s chest.  I had brought a large bath towel and we managed to herd the raven between us and I was able to scoop the injured bird up in the towel.  The bird was soaking wet.  

He lay in my arms like a pet cat, unresisting and not attempting to slash anything with his huge, powerful scimitar of a beak.  I brought the raven into the house and called Peter, luckily getting him on the third ring.  We exchanged greetings and Peter asked how I was.  I said I was fine but I had a raven in my arms.  Peter inquired after his state of health and said I should bring him right over.  

I got my husband to hold the raven so I could change out of pyjamas and the bird did begin to struggle a bit then.  Once changed, I was able to rewrap the raven in the big, fluffy towel and he again relaxed totally in my arms.  I expect his relatives told him this was a safe house for ravens.  We have long been friendly with the pair of ravens who hold our farm as part of their territory.   

We drove over to Peter’s house and he readied a small room with a low perch for the raven, putting in a bed of clean straw and a bowl of water.  I released the raven who simply hopped into the room and began to explore in the coolest manner possible.  Peter said he would cook the raven an egg and put some meat out to thaw.  We noticed the raven also had an open cut on his head.  He seemed quite strong and fit and I was hopeful for a full recovery.  Peter said he might have been attacked by an eagle or even another raven.  

I called Peter three days later to inquire after the bird’s health and Peter said, “That is sad.”  He had driven all the way to Nanaimo to take the raven to a wildlife rehabilitation centre.  The raven had tangled with a hot wire and been electrocuted.  The wounds we saw were electrical burns and his wing had developed gangrene.  Peter asked if they could amputate but they said the bird would not have a good life with only one wing.  The raven received euthanasia, which is a Greek term for a peaceful death.  

While this was not the result we had hoped for, the raven came to us for help and we all did our best for him.  Peter did the heavy lifting.  The raven was able to die warm, dry, with a full belly and no pain.  I call that a win.  

I was really impressed by the raven’s intelligence and calm under what must have been a very stressful circumstance.  Birds and animals are not so different from humans. They are our little brothers and sisters.

I am planting a memorial flower hedge in my vegetable garden for the raven.  It will have sunflowers, cosmos daisies, calendulas, sweet peas, nasturtiums and bachelor’s buttons.  The blooms will feed the insects who will in turn feed other insects and spiders. These will in turn be eaten by little birds who will feed the hawks and so on.  We can be a help to Nature and the Living Earth if we put our minds to it.  Happy Spring Equinox to you all.